


Second-Day Trousers

by EventHorizon



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Skipthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1583162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EventHorizon/pseuds/EventHorizon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin gets some advice for happy living from Arthur...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second-Day Trousers

      “Arthur, I don’t actually mind you watching me brush my teeth, but do you have to dance while you do it?”

      “Well, I don’t actually have to… no, that’s a bit of a lie.  My legs are dancing whether I want them to or not, so I might as well dance along with them.  So, yes, I actually have to.  That no I said before was a no to not dancing, which whips its way around and becomes yes to dancing.  You should be dancing, too.  It’s going to be a brilliant day!”

      “You’re helping me move a flat’s worth of furniture and then we’re having dinner with your mother.   I really don’t see a sparking amount of brilliance about any of that.”

      “That’s because you always look in the closet first before you look out of the window.”

      “If that was supposed to make sense, I apologize for being dense.”

      “Brilliant!  You made a rhyme!  You should make more of them and write them down and I can add pictures and we could have a little book like the kiddies read but it would just be your rhymes and my pictures and… oh, I’m making a mental note of this so I don’t forget…  ok, done.  Anyway, closets are dark and cramped and sometimes you find things at the rear that you just sort of have to back away from quickly and hope they find better home by the time you need your jacket again.  If that’s the first thing you look at when you open your eyes in the morning, then your whole day’s going to be dark and cramped and filled with closet creepers.  But, if you look out of the window first off, you see the trees and the people and the sun or the big clouds or a sky full of birds… and your day’s full of that instead.  Then you’ll have a second-day trousers day and what’s better than that?”

      “I know I will regret this as severely as the last time I let you cut my hair, but just what is a second-day trousers day?”

      “Just because that little girl gave a bit of a scream when she saw you without your hat doesn’t mean you had funny hair.  She might just have been having a first-day trousers day and _nothing_ would have made her happy, although I’m not sure kiddies can have trouser days because they’re so small and their mums tend to put them in baggy little trousers that leave room for their nappies.”

      “And now… back to my question.”

      “Oh!  Sorry, well it’s like this.  You know how when you wash your trousers and then wear them for the first time after they’ve been washed?  You pull them on and they get stuck above your knees.  So you do a bunny hop and they climb up a little.  Then you do another hop and a wiggle and they slide up even higher.  Then you lay on the bed and put your legs in the air and try to push your bum _up_ into the trousers while you pull the trousers _down_ to fit over your bum.  And you wave your legs around because that helps sometimes.  And then you have to hold your breath really hard and try to fasten the button.  There’s usually some leg waving that goes along with that, too and you might have to take a little break for awhile… but finally you have on your trousers.  But you can’t sit up, so you have to roll yourself off your bed and hope your legs hit the floor first so you can hop up and be standing again.  And walking around isn’t a lot of fun, so you end up having to do some knee-bends to make walking fun again and people look at you oddly and…”

      “Ok!  Ok… I get the picture.  Wearing tight pants is bad.”

      “Well, not bad, just a challenge.  But, the good thing about it is that you get to have second-day trousers day the next day!  Just like a real challenge – you do it and it may be hard but you get a big reward when you’re done.”

      “And second-day trousers is a reward?”

      “Of course!  Second-day trousers are brilliant!  You pick them up and they’re not really dirty so you can wear then one more time which makes Mum happy since she doesn’t have to wash even more clothes on top of the one’s she has to wash because you pulled the top off of the fingerpaint container a bit too forcefully.  Anyway, you pick them up and you put them on and they just go on!  And you can button them and walk around in them without having to squat down to loosen them up and they feel so comfortable and you didn’t have to do anything to make them that way.  It’s like everything just works out perfectly without you even trying and some days are like that, too!  Some days are first-day trouser days and others are second-day trouser days, and sometimes you have to have first-day trouser days, even a lot of them, to get to the second-day trouser days but that’s ok because you still get them and can enjoy them and if you don’t take advantage _and_ enjoy them… well, we’re back to being a closet looker again and that’s just not good.  Understand?”

      “To my utter astonishment… yes.  Do you know why I love you, Arthur?”

      “Because I love _you_?”

      “That’s one reason.  Another is that you are, despite what anyone else might think, one of the smartest people I know.”

      “Really?”

      “Absolutely.  And to show you how smart I think you are, I am going to take your advice and look at today as a second-day trousers day.  Peek out the window first and just enjoy the time.  Sound good.”

      “Brilliant!  And who knows, maybe it will be such a good day it’ll _actually_ be a new-out-of-the-dryer day instead!”

      “And do I want to know what that is?”

      “Best to take things slowly, Skip.”


End file.
